Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Joseph Aberl

  • SWCE: ‘Andor’ Season 2 Eyeing Late Summer 2024 Release

    SWCE: ‘Andor’ Season 2 Eyeing Late Summer 2024 Release

    After a long wait, Star Wars Celebration is back with its big panel teasing what the future has in store for Lucasfilm. They kicked off the panel with their sleeper hit from last year: Andor. The more grounded story of the early days of the rebellion has sparked with many fans and may have become the one series that many believe is even Lucasfilm and Star Wars’ best entry to date.

    We’ve known for some time though that the series isn’t quite done yet and would wrap up with a second season. During the big Lucasfilm panel at SWCE, the series showrunner and creator Tony Gilroy unveiled that we might expect the series sometime next year. He highlights that they are already halfway through production and once again confirms that the series will end where Rogue One starts.

    Source: Twitter

  • HBO Max’s ‘It’ Prequel Scares Up its First Cast Members

    HBO Max’s ‘It’ Prequel Scares Up its First Cast Members

    It looks to have found its first four cast members. The upcoming prequel series based on the popular It duology by Andy Muschietti will further explore the early days of the town of Derry. For now, it only has the fittingly working title of “Welcome to Derry” but it seems that the project is moving forward at full speed after it was ordered straight-to series back in February.

    As of now, four cast members have joined the production which includes Ma Raney’s Black Bottom‘s Taylour Paige, Babylon‘s Jovan Adepo, Oppenheimer‘s James Remar, and Perry Mason‘s Chris Chalk. Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane are serving as co-showrunners on the project with Muschietti acting as an executive producer through Double Dream.

    Currently, the following logline has been shared for the HBO Max original series:

    Set in the world of Stephen King’s ‘It’ universe, ‘Welcome to Derry’ is based on King’s ‘It’ novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films ‘It’ and ‘It Chapter Two.

    Supposedly Andy Muschietti will also direct multiple episodes, including the pilot. Fuchs wrote the teleplay for the first episode, but it is based on an idea he worked on with Muschietti and his wife, Barbara Muschietti. It’ll be interesting to see how they might tackle this adaptation and how much the focus may be on Pennywise given he’s an integral part of Derry’s history. Bill Skarsgard, who played him in the last two films, confirmed he has not been in talks to join just yet. So, we’ll see if an announcement will follow.

    Source: Variety

  • ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Wahooing Towards $127.5M 5-Day Opening Weekend

    ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Wahooing Towards $127.5M 5-Day Opening Weekend

    Even as the reviews from critics are surprisingly harsh, it seems that the collaboration between Illumination, Universal, and Nintendo is heading towards that 1-Up Mushroom, as The Super Mario Bros. Movie is looking to make quite a big bang at the box office this weekend. Wednesday previews are already looking strong and are heading towards $26M sans Tuesday previews, which would potentially mean an $86.2M 3-day opening.

    Luckily for it, this will be a 5-day opening and it’ll likely end up around $127.5M, which would put it on the path to becoming the biggest opening for a video game-based adaptation. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opened to $26.3M but that was including Thursday previews. It held the 3-day record at $72.1M and while critics haven’t loved the Nintendo film, audiences seemingly do going by its Rotten Tomatoes.

    Not just that, this film will also pull in the best 5-day debut for Illumination since Despicable Me 2‘s $143M back in 2013. With some strong legs, the film has a good chance of starting its own cinematic universe, as post-credit sequences have already been teased (Luigi’s Mansion, anyone?). The only question is if the legs will hold as family audiences haven’t really been reliable going by previous entries, but this film might be why they weren’t showing up; COVID has led to many saving up for the big releases.

    Source: Deadline

  • Jason Momoa’s ‘Minecraft’ Movie Gets 2025 Release Date

    Jason Momoa’s ‘Minecraft’ Movie Gets 2025 Release Date

    It seems a blocky adventure is on the horizon, as Minecraft finally has a release date. It was in April of last year that it was unveiled Jason Momoa would potentially star in a film based on the popular indie game, Minecraft. While the franchise went on to have more story-focused offerings, it mainly was about a simple concept: survival. In its very simplistic design, you play a character gathering resources and trying to survive the dangers of the night. Now, April 4th 2025 is when we’ll get to enter this blocky world.

    There’s no detail on what exactly we can expect from this film and if they might take inspiration from the Minecraft: Story Mode game or even focus on concepts taken from the Dungeons spinoffs. Some time ago, it was hinted it would follow a version of the female protagonist from the game that was on a hunt for the Ender Dragon alongside a group of adventures; not too dissimilar from the recent Dungeons & Dragons film.

    Steve Carrel was even at one point set to star when the film had multiple directors attached but now seems to be actually moving forward. Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess is still seemingly involved. For now, we’ll have to wait and see what the future has in store for the game adaptation, especially as The Super Mario Bros. Movie faced a surprisingly negative reaction from critics even after positive early reactions. So, we’ll see where the future is heading towards for video game adaptations.

    Source: Deadline

  • Warner Bros. Eyeing a ‘Harry Potter Revival as an HBO Max Series

    Warner Bros. Eyeing a ‘Harry Potter Revival as an HBO Max Series

    The Wizarding World has lost a lot of steam with its latest Fantastic Beast entry, and it seems that Warner Bros. is trying to bring back the magic, as they are currently eyeing a new adaptation of the iconic Harry Potter books. This time around, however, it won’t be a new set of films but rather an ongoing series for HBO Max that would recount all books. The only troubling reveal is: J.K. Rowling may be involved to produce.

    While it makes sense that the author of the original work would be involved, Rowling has become quite infamous for her views online. It has gotten to a point where stars of the original have quite openly spoken out against her beliefs and the troubles that come with it. It seems that her involvement is due to her creative control over the work.

    The project is among the many ideas that WBD has without any talent involved. So, it is in the very early stages and once they move forward, they’ll likely focus on trying to add a writer that would work alongside Rowling to bring this series to life for the streaming service. The plan, for now, seems to adapt one book per season, which would lead to around seven seasons’ worth of stories to explore.

    In a way, it’s not too surprising as WBD has also been quite vocal about wanting to revive its “big IPs” in the past such as recent movements on bringing back The Lord of the Rings with its original creative team involved, or at least in talks to return. So, they are trying to recapture that magic again and push the franchise back into the spotlight. Perhaps moving it to HBO Max is also a way to give it time before its cinematic potential is revived. Just a shame they didn’t create their own story in Hogwarts to make it stand out.

    Source: Deadline, Bloomberg

  • Frank Grillo Doubts a Crossbones Return to the MCU, Hints at DCU Future

    Frank Grillo Doubts a Crossbones Return to the MCU, Hints at DCU Future

    There’s always a discussion surrounding how villains are treated in any comic book cinematic franchise. Most commonly, they survive for mostly one film and those that make it out alive aren’t around for too long. So, while the heroes continue to get some development, outside of Loki, most villains end up one-dimensional due to the lack of screen time.

    As it turns out, Crossbones actor Frank Grillo feels the same. His character was seemingly set up for a long future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe but faced an untimely end during Captain America: Civil War. One might argue that without his character, the events of that entire film wouldn’t have taken place but it seems Grillo wasn’t a fan of how his character was treated, and seemingly confirms he’ll appear in an upcoming DC project.

    They never told a story [about Crossbones]. The mythology of the MCU and just what Marvel has in its pool of characters, it’s so deep. Crossbones was there for a minute, but he was supposed to be there longer, then they went the direction they did. I think Crossbones serves a purpose, but I think the interesting thing is that if you see how many people around the world have responded to Crossbones, and again, he’s on the screen for a very f–king short amount of time, I think there’s more there. I think there was more meat on the bone. I was disappointed, which is why I went over to DC.

    Frank Grillo

    It’s certainly a bit strange as he probably had more screen time than any villain in the MCU. Plus, he also returned for two projects even after his character died, as he returned in Avengers: Endgame and even voiced Crossbones again in What If…?. So, he wasn’t a character that was completely sidelined and it would’ve been great to see him return especially with future multiversal storylines. But going by his comments, that ship has sailed.

    Source: ComicBook.com

  • Amazon’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Series Only Finished by 37% of its Domestic Viewers

    Amazon’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Series Only Finished by 37% of its Domestic Viewers

    Here’s a rather shocking reveal, but it seems Amazon’s gamble with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power may have not paid off as initially hoped. The series is one of the most expensive productions out there and already has a second season on the horizon, but new internal data has revealed that the first season was only finished by 37% of its viewers domestically. Internationally, it’s not too far off at around 45% with 50% usually considered a “solid” performance.

    There’s a bit of irony to this story, as the series is not viewed as a failure, even if it didn’t even become a major awards contender either. The series had the biggest debut for the streaming service and that does mean its smaller finish rate still would rival any other series on the platform. Up until now, The Boys seems to remain their biggest release (throwing another wrench into the superhero fatigue blender) and Amazon Studios chief seemingly views The Rings of Power quite a bit more positively.

    This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally. That’s a huge opportunity for us. The first season required a lot of setting up.

    Jennifer Salke

    Netflix dominates the Nielsen ratings and there’s quite a bit of difficulty in truly pinpointing a series’ success. The service with the highest viewership seemingly also sets the highest bars of what makes a successful series. Amazon also seemingly has a problem in that there’s “no vision of what an Amazon Prime show is” which stands in an interesting juxtaposition to just how easy it is to figure out if Netflix or Disney+ is behind the wheel on a project.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • DC Studios co-CEO Weighs in on Competing with Marvel Studios

    DC Studios co-CEO Weighs in on Competing with Marvel Studios

    Marvel vs. DC is seemingly half of what makes the Internet the Internet. There’s always been a competition on who has the coolest hero, the best character developments, the most iconic moments, and whatever a nerdy brain can think up. Yet, it’s a very different picture for those involved in trying to make these companies and their projects a success.

    Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has very openly stated that he hopes to see DC succeed, as he believed it was beneficial to everyone. And now DC Studios co-CEO, James Gunn, has echoed those same words. He believes that “every movie Marvel has is sort of an advertising for comic-book films, and vice versa.”

    I think it’s the opposite. To be frank, I think the better Marvel movies do, it’s better for DC, and the better DC movies do, it’s better for Marvel. When people see bad movies, they don’t want to spend more money on seeing more movies. So you want good movies to happen, especially since we’re making two or three movies a year at DC. So every movie that Marvel has is sort of an advertising for comic-book films, and vice versa. And you don’t want to scare off people from going to the theater. And if we’re both making good movies, that’s the best of all situations, which keeps the ball bouncing back and forth. At that point, we can talk about rivalries, and it’d be fun.

    James Gunn

    It’s also fitting that the director of a Marvel and DC film feels this way, as his belief isn’t far-fetched from reality. We’ve seen all these films at their best when others succeed, as there’s a certain boost from one project going into the next. As such, these projects need each other to offer something unique to make them stand out, while also boosting their success. Here’s hoping whatever dragged the last two films down is about to take a different direction.

    Source: Rolling Stone

  • ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s James Gunn Believes in Superhero Fatigue

    ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s James Gunn Believes in Superhero Fatigue

    Superhero fatigue has been all the rage right now. Mostly due to some pointing out that they’ve seemingly reached their limits and reading too much into box office performances of two distinct projects earlier this year. Shazam: Fury of the God couldn’t pull in an audience and opened with a depressing $30M while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lost steam surprisingly fast after a bombastic opening.

    While there’s more to this given just how superhero films performed last year, James Gunn gave his thoughts on the topic and seemingly believes that there is such a thing. Yet, he points out that it’s not as simple as “superhero movies” but rather spectacle films that lack the heart that really drags us into these stories.

    I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character. We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense onscreen, it gets really boring. But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not. If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real.

    James Gunn

    It’s not completely wrong, as many spectacle films sometimes can overshadow the heart of the story. Ant-Man‘s third film is quite a bit “bigger” than the previous and perhaps just went overboard on what defined the franchise initially. Even Shazam‘s sequel seemingly started going in a bigger direction and there’s no surprise that the first two very family-centric franchises may have struggled a bit earlier this year.

    Of course, the topic of superhero fatigue is also quite a bit important for James Gunn, as he’s the head of the newly formed DC Studios. With him set to also direct the next Superman film that’ll define a future new cinematic universe, he’ll put a lot of weight into ensuring that fatigue doesn’t take away their opportunity to build this franchise.

    Source: Rolling Stones

  • James Gunn Reveals How Taika Waititi Saved His Vision of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’

    James Gunn Reveals How Taika Waititi Saved His Vision of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’

    It’s strange to think that there was a time when we didn’t know if we’ll see James Gunn direct the third Guardians of the Galaxy film. The director was a major part of the studio’s future before a controversy derailed everyone’s plans. Luckily by 2019, Gunn found his way back but was also quite busy directing his DC film, The Suicide Squad.

    So, many of his initial plans have gone through quite a few new directions as Avengers: Endgame was on the horizon and the film ended with Thor joining the Guardians. One thing Gunn knew was that he didn’t want to include the character in his story, but in an interview with the Rolling Stones, he reveals how Taika Waititi saved the vision of his film.

    And I didn’t think it was gonna be in there. Endgame came out right after I decided to do Guardians again. So I didn’t have much say in what was in Endgame, and then it came out and then I was like, ‘What the fuck am I gonna do?’ That’s when [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige] told me Taika’s gonna do Thor, and we’ll have the Guardians in it. I said, ‘Thank God!’… To be completely honest, Thor was never going to be in this movie. Taika took a bullet for me. Because I was not going to have him in. I was just gonna start up and there’s no Thor.

    James Gunn

    So, without Thor: Love and Thunder, we might not have the true original vision of Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. He had a shot to explore the Guardians a bit (ironic given he was the Internet’s top choice to continue the franchise if Gunn never managed to return) and set them off on their adventure once Thor realized his true mission was to uncover what

    Source: Rolling Stones